My official schedule now:

Monday
9:30-10:20 am -- Fitness training
10:30-11:20 am -- Religion and Human Experience
1-4 pm -- Theatre and Perfromance

Tuesday
9:55-11:10 am -- Modern American Poetry
2:40-3:55 pm -- Computer Science 21

Wednesday
9:30-10:20 am -- Fitness training
10:30-11:20 am -- Religion and Human Experience
7-10 pm -- Chorus

Thursday
Same as Tuesday

Friday
9:30-10:20 am -- Fitness training
10:30-11:20 am -- Religion and Human Experience

Whee.

My computer was being screwed up, and thanks to ITS and the net registration, I couldn't get online. But both problems have been fixed now, hallelujah. And whatever you do, don't download Service Pack 2 for Windows XP. I'm pretty sure it's what made my computer freeze up so much yesterday. After I got rid of it last night, my computer was fine.

Other than that... Nothing. I have to go read for my religion class now.

Dinner was nice; they gave us slices of orange at the end, which was odd to me but also very tasty. I need to eat oranges more often.

Hung out with Matt afterwards, came back to ML, met the guy across the hall from me, battled with my computer a bit (it was freezing up for some reason), wrote some, and am now back on the computer. Fun fun.

Classes start tomorrow. I have two, plus one I may add. Whee. I'm not sure how going straight from the gym to the religion class will work out... It should be okay, I guess. I just hope I have enough time to make it from one to the other.

Time to sleep - I actually have to wake up at a decent hour tomorrow.

I went swimming for the second day in a row today... Did some psuedo laps with Lauren (not as hardcore as the people who were seriously swimming) and stood around and chatted. My arms hurt from the swimming.

Classes start tomorrow, and I still don't have a fourth course. The prof for Theatre and Performance hasn't emailed me back yet, so I don't know if there's room in the class. I'll go tomorrow and see. Otherwise I may try the Playwriting Workshop, though I'm a bit nervous about that. Yes, I meet the prereqs, but it still seems intimidating to me.

Today was the activity fair... I signed up for the Daily Gazette (a daily news thing at school sent to people via email) and one of the lit mags. There was at least one other lit mag I was interested in, but they didn't seem to have a table set up. Oh well.

A bunch of us are going to go into the Ville tonight and get Chinese... It should be fun; at least it will be nicer than all of us sitting on the floor eating with plastic utensils.

It seems that Intro to Film and Media Studies is full now, so I won't be able to take it after all. Curses. Now I'm trying to get into Theatre and Performance, so we'll see how that goes.

I played poker last night, and came out exactly even. Put in $5, took $5 out. Not bad.

I will hopefully be dying my hair red sometime today. I'm not sure how the currently greenish parts will turn out, but oh well.

Ugh. I was woken up about 40 minutes ago by the fire alarm. It reminded me of the multiple times that happened last year, but at least this time it wasn't 3 am, freezing, and horrible. This time is was just very annoying. No fire, but something about a water break or something... Not entirely sure at the moment.

Anyway, now I'm up. Joy of joys. I probably wouldn't have slept too much longer, but waking up without the alarm would have been nice.

I missed out on the Wink game tonight, which is sad, but I still had fun. More people are arriving on campus, which is great. I hung out with Mark, Nile, Rob, David, and John for a bit tonight, got to see the part of the new dorm, and dealt some Texas Hold 'Em for the Saloon night.

Tomorrow (well, later today, actually) is my last day of CA duties. It is also the day when campus will be flooded with returning students. Yay! The downside is that classes start on Monday, and I'm not sure if I'm ready for that yet. But I don't really have a choice. At least my schedule is pretty nice.

Monday
9:30-10:20 am -- Fitness training (aka work out for gym credit)
10:30-11:20 am -- Religion and Human Experience
7-10 pm -- Intro to Film and Media Studies film screening

Tuesday
9:55-11:10 am -- Modern American Poetry
2:40-3:55 pm -- Computer Science 21 (coding in C++ and such)

Wednesday
9:30-10:20 am -- Fitness training
10:30-11:20 am -- Religion and Human Experience
1:15-4 pm -- Intro to Film and Media Studies class
7-10 pm -- Chorus

Thursday
Same as Tuesday

Friday
9:30-10:20 am -- Fitness training
10:30-11:20 am -- Religion and Human Experience

And then somewhere in there I'll hopefully have a radio show as well. All in all, I think it will be a good semester.

So I just got back from Collection, a sort of ceremony for first years. On my way back from campus, I encountered Gracie out for a walk with her owners. Gracie seemed to remember me (her tail started wagging and she was all happy), and I finally got to meet her owners. They seem very nice, and apparently they knew of my existance - they told me the dog's name was Gracie, and I said that I knew, and that I had visited her a lot last year, to which they responded, "Oh, are you that girl?" I am indeed that girl. They don't have any problem with me playing with Gracie, and invited me to stop by any time. So that's cool. And apparently Gracie was sad when I left Swat last year - for a week she went outside and waited for me to walk by, but I never came. Poor girl.

Also spotted tonight were 2 cats on campus. Not the Willets' Cat, but what I have dubbed the Sproul Cats. One is white with a brown tail, and the other is an orange tiger... I have seen both of them before, and I believe they eat the food set up by the back door of Sproul. I think they need to migrate over to Willets - neither of them seem as well fed as the Willets' Cat. They also seem less socialable - they both ran away from me, and when they bumped into each other there was some hissing.

Not a whole lot else happened today. I slept late, did a few odds and ends around campus, and finally got a decent meal at dinner. Tomorrow my CA group has a few things going on, and then Friday marks the return of the well, returning students. Nifty.

So the first day of actual CA duties (and the most serious and busy one) is over with. I spent 3 lovely hours in the morning helping people unload, another 1 and 1/2 answering questions and such, and then later listened to some speeches (the same as last year, almost word for word except for a few changes) and then met all my CAees. They all seem pretty nice and cool, and overall things went really well. It was an exhausting day, though. Luckily, I have nothing to do tomorrow until 6:50 pm. I will not be setting my alarm clock. There is no way.

Other than that, not much to say... My hall has livened up a little bit more, as has the dorm as a whole. I think it will be a good school year.

I made it my unofficial goal to cover the vast majority of the walls on my half of the room with stuff. I like stuff, stuff is nice, and I don't like white walls all that much. I feel that I have accomplished my goal. There are a few posters that I can't really make use of (too big for the closet doors, just not enough room elsewhere, unless I resort to the ceiling, where they will probably fall down), and I'm awaiting one more that one of my former specs is giving me, which will hopefully fit on the back of the door. If it doesn't, I don't know what I'll do with it. Perhaps invade Marci's half with it, but I'd feel a bit bad about that.

More orientation prep stuff tomorrow, and hopefully the buying of books as well. I want to get in there and get it over with before the mad rush starts. The aisles are not wide enough to manuver in when there is a mad rush. There is lots of bumping and toe-stepping and apologizing, and I would like to just avoid that whole mess.

I think I'm going to go play with my wonderful fridge-front of Magnetic Poetry now. Whee!

It seems that the Orientation Committee is not all that well organized. However, we're still managing to do the things that need to be done, so it should all turn out okay.

My brain is trying to deal with the reality of waking up "early" (read: early than I had been getting up back home; any time before 11 am), so I'm kind of groggy and such. Not a great thing, but also not too much of a problem since I haven't had to do anything too mentally taxing. But I need to get used to things before classes, otherwise things will fall apart.

I'm off to do something mindless now.

It's raining... Looks like I won't be heading up to campus to buy my books right now after all. Because hauling back textbooks in the rain is just not fun. I have plenty of time to get them anyway...

Back to hanging posters and such, then.

I'm officially moved in. I still have to hang up my posters and such, but everything else is in place. I have nothing to do until 8:30 tonight other than hang said posters and wander up to campus to get my books. Training and other various things for CA-dom start tomorrow, the frosh arrive on Tuesday, and then orientation gets into full swing.

I encountered the Willets cat yesterday, only the 3rd time since I've started college. Nice cat, even if it is a bit elusive.

Not much else to say. Things should get more exciting once more people arrive.

Except for a few last minute things, I'm all packed up and ready to go. I leave in about nine hours, have a lovely long drive, and move in Friday. Whee!

Other than that, not much to say... Quincyians, I will see you later. Swatties, I will see you soon. Everyone else... I don't know.

Today was an interesting day... I ran some errands (not interesting) and was complimented on my blue hair by an old stoner (somewhat interesting). The truly interesting part of the day, however, was this: my father quit/was asked to resign from his job today due to personality clashes with the CEO or something. There didn't seem to be an actual good reason. While it came as a bit of a shock - he was told today and today was his last day - it is also kind of nice. He can now follow up on some other prospects, which leads to another interesting bit: it's highly unlikely that he'd get another job in Quincy. Which means that within the next year, I will most likely end up moving. So. Interesting, no?

Also: I watched Goodbye Lenin! tonight. It was pretty good. Tomorrow I pack, and now I sleep.

My blue hair has faded and washed out to more of a teal color. It matches my boots. Too bad it's too warm for boots... Though it is abnormally cool for August.

Swatmail is down, it seems, thus preventing me from checking email. Arg. Curse it.

I find it mind-boggling that I head back to school in about four days. I'm ready for it, but I'm also not. I need to do things, like clean up my desk and pack and all. I keep saying I'm going to do it, but then I get distracted by things. Today the distraction was hanging out with Heather and seeing Princess Diaries 2. A perfectly worthy distraction, but still. I may actually set my alarm for tomorrow so that I get up at a decent time and get some more things accomplished.

In that case, I need to get some sleep so I'll actually get out of bed when the alarm goes off...

I was spoiled today, and it was lovely. Today was the spa day my mom gave me as a reward for helping out in Denver. So we went to a spa/salon in town and got pampered. I had a massage (amazing), facial (pretty nice), and a pedicure (great). We then wasted the rest of the day by just being lazy. It was so nice that we're thinking of making it an annual tradition. Yay!

I'm going to be awake for awhile yet, thanks to the 4 hour nap I took this afternoon. Oh well.

My blue hair... A bit faded from a few washings, but still hanging in there. I pulled back the top layer of (normal colored) hair so you could get a better look at the blue... So the back of my head doesn't look quite this blue when my hair is just down normally.

I just finished watching season one of The West Wing... Curse the cliff-hanger. I know I saw the next episode before, but it's been about 4 years now, so I don't remember much. Rar.

I'm currently doing about five things at once online, but one of them is downloading something that will hopefully enable me to easily post a picture on my blog. The picture being of my blue hair, which my mother has said reminds her of mold. Lovely.

Hopefully the picture will be coming soon.

More of my hair is blue now. Unfortunately, so are my ears and the back of my neck as well as my fingertips. Oops. Hopefully those will wash up nicely. The hair looks interesting... It's kind of a cool one-time thing, but I think next time I dye my hair I'll go back to red. Colleen has apparently decided to stay a (bit more toned down) blonde, and Heather has some lovely auburn locks at the moment.

Lucy the fat cat is being overly affectionate. Since I'm the only one home, she has been hanging around me all night. She is now sitting in my lap, licking whichever appendenge is within reach. It would be sweet if it weren't so annoying. And now she's lying on my foot... Circulation is being lost rapidly. Ow.

Removal of the cat, and then sleep. Yay.

Yesterday was "Kill Colleen's Hair Day"... And by bleaching her once black/dark brown dyed hair twice to a crazy blonde shade, we did just that. The next step is to dye it again... Probably magenta.

The bottom layer of my hair is a dark blue at the moment. I will probably add more today, because the blue is mostly lost amongst the brown and my hair looks completely normal from the front, which is disappointing.

Now perhaps a nap.

I have a cell phone of my very own now. Whee.

I'm home now. Yay, sort of. The weather at the lake was so much nicer than the awful humidity here, but I'm still glad to see my furry pets, and I'm also getting excited about school. Only two weeks until I head back! And I got my CA info finally... Tomorrow I start writing the letters.

Another yay - Jimmy Eat World is releasing a new album in October. This makes me happy. Hopefully it will be good.

I've been reading a lot lately... Perhaps a subconscious desire to get back into the routine before school starts. In the past few weeks, I've read:

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- took me a bit to get into it, but altogether a good book.

Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo by Andy Greenwald -- an easy, but also interesting read. It's one of the few non-fiction books that I've actually really enjoyed reading.

Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier -- definitely a light read and the novel equivalent of a chick flick, but also really good. It's not all that often that I read a 500 page book with almost no breaks, but I didn't go to sleep until I had finished this. At 6 am.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood -- a good book, but not a great one. I felt like there was something lacking, namely a better ending. But still a good book, especially if you like 1984 and other such books.

And now sleep. Or more catching up on stuff and then eventually sleep.

I'm in Michigan for about one day more. I don't really want to leave... I love the lake. I've been swimming a lot, which is nice. It's also odd - I usually hate swimming. But the lake is not at all like being at the pool, which is nice. I'm finally over my cold, so I'm feeling better physically. I'm also doing better emotionally, which is definately a very good thing.

A little more than two weeks until I go back to school. I'm looking forward to it for the most part. I do with the CA group organizers would send us the info about our groups... I'm supposed to write letters to people, but I don't know who. But hopefully that will get taken care of in the next few days.

Time to figure out what's going on for dinner.